PLAY GUIDE

Wurtele Thrust Stage / Feb 9 – March 17, 2019

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREdirected by LAVINA JADHWANI

As You Like It

Inside

Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE (toll-free)

guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director

Guthrie Theater Play GuideCopyright 2019

DRAMATURG Carla SteenGRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi GravesCONTRIBUTOR Carla Steen

All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Some materials published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted by permission of their publishers.

The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Guthrie creates transformative theater experiences that ignite the imagination, stir the heart, open the mind and build community through the illumination of our common humanity.

Play guides are made possible by

THE PLAYSynopsis, Setting and Characters • 4From the Director: Lavina Jadhwani • 5Comments on Some of the Characters • 7Responses to As You Like It • 9

THE PLAYWRIGHTWilliam Shakespeare • 11A Legacy That Continues to Inspire • 12Shakespeare's Plays • 13

CULTURAL CONTEXTCharacter Names and Their Meanings • 14Selected Glossary of Terms • 15

ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONFor Further Reading and Understanding • 17

2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

This play guide is designed to fuel your curiosity and deepen your understanding of a show’s history, meaning and cultural relevance so you can make the most of your theatergoing experience. You might be reading this because you fell in love with a show you saw at the Guthrie. Maybe you want to read

up on a play before you see it onstage. Or perhaps you’re a fellow theater company doing research for an upcoming production. We’re glad you found your way here, and we encourage you to dig in and mine the depths of this extraordinary story.

About This Guide

DIG DEEPERIf you are a theater company and would like more information about this production, contact Dramaturg Carla Steen at carlas@guthrietheater.org.

PHOTO: THE CAST OF AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

– Jaques to Duke Senior in As You Like It

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 3

THE PLAY

Cousins Rosalind and Celia are virtually inseparable at court. Rosalind is the daughter of Duke Senior, who was forced into exile when his dukedom was usurped by his brother Frederick, Celia’s father. Rosalind’s sadness over her difficult position is lightened when she meets Orlando, a young man long mistreated by his brother Oliver, and the attraction is mutual.

Soon Rosalind, too, is banished from court by the increasingly paranoid Duke Frederick. With ever-loyal Celia and the irrepressible court jester Touchstone for company, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy named Ganymede and sets off into the Forest of Arden.

Orlando also seeks refuge in the pastoral world of the forest and finds a welcoming Duke Senior. When Rosalind encounters Orlando in the forest, she befriends him — as Ganymede — and proposes to cure his lovesickness by pretending to be his Rosalind.

Meanwhile, love abounds in the forest for several other couples. Touchstone is drawn to the young goatherd Audrey while Silvius and Phoebe, a pair of shepherds, find their courtship complicated by Phoebe’s scorn and an unexpected result when she meets Ganymede. But before the lovers can live happily ever after, families must reunite and disguises must be discarded.

Synopsis

SETTINGThe action moves between Oliver’s house, Duke Frederick’s court and the Forest of Arden.

CHARACTERS

Duke Frederick, a usurperCelia, his daughterTouchstone, a court foolLe Beau, a courtier attending Duke FrederickCharles, a wrestler in Duke Frederick’s employ

Duke Senior, Duke Frederick’s brother, an exile living in the Forest of ArdenRosalind, his daughter and Celia’s cousinAmiens, a lord attending Duke SeniorJaques, a melancholy traveler attending Duke Senior

Oliver, the oldest son of Sir Roland de BoysJacques de Boys, the middle son of Sir Roland de BoysOrlando, the youngest son of Sir Roland de BoysAdam, a servant of the de Boys familyDennis, a servant of Oliver

Corin, a shepherdSilvius, a shepherd in love with PhoebePhoebe, a shepherd scorning SilviusAudrey, a goatherdWilliam, a countrymanSir Oliver Martext, a vicarHymen, a goddess

PHOTO: CHRIS THORN AND JESSE BHAMRAH IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

From the Director: Lavina JadhwaniAs a rom-com aficionado, sports enthusiast and fan of all things Midwest, Chicago-based director Lavina Jadhwani couldn’t wait to direct As You Like It at the Guthrie. Creating work on our stages has topped her to-do list for more than a decade, and Shakespeare’s charming tale of four weddings and a forest fit the bill. Before she arrived for rehearsals, we asked her to share what was on her mind and how she planned to pull it off while keeping the text intact.

THE TEXT When people hear I’m directing As You Like It, they often ask, “What are you doing to the play?” While I understand what they’re asking, I’m not doing anything to it — I’m a language-based director who begins by examining the words and their intentions. Then I interpret them through a contemporary (and often more

inclusive) lens. Like Shakespeare, I take a populist approach with the goal of making his stories more accessible to all audiences.

THE SETTINGWhenever I direct Shakespeare, I’m juggling multiple time periods at once: when he wrote the play, when he set the play, when we are setting the play and when the

audience is seeing the play. As a director, I want these different time periods to work in harmony while both honoring the story and making it feel relevant. When I considered the themes and politics of As You Like It, it felt very 2019 to me. It’s a play about family and forgiveness where two seemingly distant worlds start to feel closer together, and it’s a story about

PHOTO: AUSTEN T. FISHER AND LAVINA JADHWANI (NATHAN DALE STUDIOS)

THE PLAY

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 5

THE FOREST OF ARDENArden is often over-romanticized. I’ve seen many productions (and even directed one) where the forest feels beautiful and autumnal, but the text speaks of danger and “winter and rough weather.” Oliver mentions lions and snakes and recounts a near-death experience. In our production, the characters must endure a bitterly cold Midwestern winter in the

forest that eventually becomes a beautiful, blossoming spring. Arden is a retreat for the exiles — it’s not a vacation. Everything is effortful and hard-won in the forest, including the love stories. Most things worth doing usually are.

THE WRESTLING MATCHI’ve always struggled to understand the setting of the wrestling match. Where are Rosalind and Celia that the match comes to them and not vice versa? As I studied the text and thought about the play’s gender politics, I pictured them in a boxing gym working out their frustrations brought on by the male-dominated world they live in. I like the idea of finding them in this masculine, underground space and having Rosalind know about and be interested in the wrestling. She’s not just smitten by Orlando because he’s a dashing fighter — she understands the sport of wrestling intimately, and that’s a language they share. Viewing their first encounter though this lens also appealed to my inner sports fan.

THE RELATIONSHIPSI love romantic comedies, so I wanted to create unique meet-cutes — a film term for amusing first encounters — for the four couples. For Rosalind and Orlando, it felt more traditional — they meet at the wrestling match and sparks fly. In contrast, Silvius has been wooing Phoebe for years despite her resistance, which makes their lightbulb moment more complex. But the actors found it in the audition scene, when she suddenly realizes he’s the guy she always goes to after a hard day’s work. It really makes you root for them as a couple.

The relationship between Oliver and Celia happens so quickly that it needed to feel genuine. When Oliver says “’Twas I, but ’tis not I” and shows humility, I realized that Celia sees in him what she wants to see in her father — a man of status who can admit wrongdoing and be transformed. For Touchstone and Audrey, I built their meet-cute outside the text because we don’t see them as a couple until they are about to be married.

THE GODDESSWhen I directed As You Like It in Chicago five years ago, I cut Hymen from the play. Honestly, I just wasn’t sure why she was there. This time around, the toxic masculinity in the court at the top of the play felt very contemporary and relevant, which is why I believed the story needed a strong maternal presence at the end to bring everyone together. I’ve seen productions where Hymen descends onstage in a supernatural way, but I pictured her emerging from a wall of trees as a beautiful, earthly presence who is one with the forest and has always been there, transforming the characters — and all of us — from within.

THE PLAY

strong women speaking their truth and boldly taking action.

THE CASTI always think about how to give more people access to a story when I direct canonical plays. I’m the daughter of immigrants, which hugely informs my work. I was privileged to have access to live performances of Shakespeare plays at a young age, but none of the actors looked like me. That’s one of the reasons why it was deeply important for me to have an inclusive cast tell this story. When I think about the thousands of high school students who will attend this production, I want them to see themselves onstage.

THE COURT VS. THE FORESTThe relationship between the court and the forest appealed to my Midwestern sensibilities, especially because I grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago in between extremely urban and extremely rural communities. The court and the forest are not very far apart geographically, but by the end of the play, they feel closer spiritually. The generous spirit of Arden — and the cold winter climates — also felt very Midwestern. I wanted this production of As You Like It to feel more personal to me, the acting company and the Guthrie’s audiences.

6 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

THE PLAY

Comments on Some of the CharactersTHE DUKES: TWO HALVES OF THE SAME COIN?

The fact that Duke Senior is one of the two dukes — one wicked, one virtuous — laying claim to the same dukedom suggests that the underlying structure of the play is in part one of psychological splitting. On one level there are indeed two dukes, and the rightful Duke, whose name declares his seniority, regains his proper place, while his usurping brother, Duke Frederick, is converted in the woods — offstage — by a convenient hermit and vanishes from the play. On another level there is one duke, with the capacity to behave both badly and well. His usurping repressive nature in the court (where he is “Frederick”) is overcome by a change of character in the wood, or fantasy world (where he is “Duke Senior”), and his return to his dukedom is assured by the victory of his better nature, exemplified in part by the good treatment accorded to both Rosalind and Celia.

Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All,

New York: Anchor Books, 2004

ROSALIND: A DELICIOUS STRAIN OF MUSIC

Though Rosalind is a princess, she is a princess of Arcady; and notwithstanding the charming effect produced by her first scenes, we scarcely ever think of her with a reference to them, or associate her with a court, and the artificial appendages of her rank. She was not made to “lord it o’er a fair mansion,” … but to breathe the free air of heaven, and frolic among green leaves. …

Everything about Rosalind breathes of “youth and youth’s sweet prim.” She is fresh as the morning, sweet as the dew-awakened blossoms, and light as the breeze that plays among them. She is as witty, as voluble, as sprightly as Beatrice [from Much Ado About Nothing]; but in a style altogether distinct. In both, the wit is equally unconscious; but in Beatrice it plays about us like the lightning, dazzling but also alarming; while the wit of Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles like the living fountain, refreshing all around. Her volubility is like the bird’s song; it is the outpouring of a heart filled to overflowing with life, love, and joy, and all sweet and

affectionate impulses. She has as much tenderness as mirth, and in her most petulant raillery there is a touch of softness. …

The impression left upon our hearts and minds by the character of Rosalind is like a delicious strain of music. There is a depth of delight, and a subtlety of words to express that delight, which is enchanting.

Anna Brownell Jameson, British writer and

art historian, Women: Moral, Poetical, and

Historical, 1833

PHOTO: MEGHAN KREIDLER AND JESSE BHAMRAH IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 7

THE PLAY

TOUCHSTONE AND JAQUES: MOTLEY FOOL AND MELANCHOLY PHILOSOPHER

Shakespeare’s most important addition to his source materials was the introduction of the two key commentators: Jaques, melancholy, sad, satiric and solemn, and Touchstone, the ironic, laughing observer. They are the reality testers, regularly undercutting the potential sweetness of the traditional pastoral setting. Jaques is the satirist of life everywhere, finding it empty, miserable and sad, while Touchstone cheerfully challenges and mocks most everything, seeing the human existence full of folly and absurdity.

[Jaques] is a familiar figure from two extensive literary traditions. One is melancholy, the other satire. Melancholy is one of the most vague, diverse, amorphous and important topics in English literature across many centuries. Its roots go back to the medieval period (and far beyond), and it was of great interest in Elizabethan England, as we can see from the numerous works that deal with this subject produced by all kinds of poets, playwrights, and scholars.

Satire is such a mixed dish of attitudes. It exposes, ridicules, derides, attacks human behavior and attitudes. It operates with contempt, but regularly claims the expectation of reform. It can be mild and gentle, or fierce and destructive; comic and funny, or deeply tragic; playful and witty, or full of moral indignation. The satirist can be the objective observer, the wise fool, the angry moralist (Jonathan Swift’s savage indignation lacerating his heart), the cynical commentator, the playful exposer of human frailty, the tragic participant.

His famous “All the world’s a stage” speech, recited by innumerable school-children across the ages, contains memorable rhetoric, but it is essentially hollow and abstract, sadly cynical, denying value in the human experience. One can gain much insight by going over it, age by age, and considering what has been left out. Mostly, it is joy and achievement. The speech, ultimately, is not all that far removed from Macbeth’s “tale told by an idiot,” suggesting meaninglessness, a mere shallow performance.

Touchstone is the other significant commentator, important in defining things. Jaques reports to the company with great glee, “A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’th’ forest,/A motley fool,” and while the forest is full of fools and foolishness, this one is special: “O noble fool!/A worthy fool!” The fool was a familiar presence in Elizabethan plays and life. The “natural fool” was the genuinely mad, insane, unstable, seriously disturbed person. Bedlam was full of them. The professional fool, by contrast, was an artist, an entertainer, who could sing, dance and play, a commentator, an interpreter, a social satirist. The professional fools, also called allowed or licensed fools, were privileged jesters.

Touchstone is a significant commentator on the human scene, but unlike Jaques, he is also an eager participant, both as a fool and a lover. He is a fool, by definition, and he is determined to be a part of the circle of love. He knows that sexuality is the great leveler. We all, Dukes, courtiers, fools, servants, shepherds, vicars, audience members, whether at the Globe or the Guthrie, dream dreams of sexual glory, desire to participate, attempt to partake of it. It is one of the most basic needs of our lives,

one of the basic realities of comedy, the guarantor of the continuation of our human carnival, with all its delights and follies. Through much of the play Touchstone has deflated the familiar, exaggerated and idealized views of love with sharp wit and a vivid dose of realism, but he knows all too well our passionate needs (“man hath his desires”) and appreciates the value of a vital and sexual woman. He may have operated with a child’s comical view of romance and sexuality, but at the close of the play he insists on being with the lovers.

Archibald I. Leyasmeyer, associate professor

of English at the University of Minnesota

from 1964–2003 and a former Guthrie board

member, excerpted from “Magic Circles in

the Forest,” originally written for the study

guide for the 2005 Guthrie production of As

You Like It

PHOTO: SARAH AGNEW AND ANGELA TIMBERMAN IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

8 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

THE PLAY

Responses to As You Like ItOf this play the fable is wild and pleasing. I know not how the ladies will approve the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia give away their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven for the heroism of her friendship. The character of Jaques is natural and well preserved. The comick dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of low buffoonery than in some other plays; and the graver part is elegant and harmonious.

Samuel Johnson, poet and critic,

The Plays of William Shakespeare, 1765

It seems to be the poet’s design to show that to call forth the poetry which has its indwelling in nature and the human mind, nothing is wanted but to throw off all artificial constraint, and restore both to mind and nature their original liberty.

August Wilhelm Schlegel, German poet

and scholar, Lectures on Dramatic Art

and Literature, 1809

Shakespear has here converted the forest of Arden into another Arcadia, where they “fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.” It is the most ideal of any of this author’s plays. It is a pastoral drama, in which the interest arises more out of the sentiments and characters than out of the action or situation. It is not what is done, but what is said, that claims our attention.

William Hazlitt, English critic, Characters of

Shakespear’s Plays, 1817

Notwithstanding [its] drawbacks, the fascination of As You Like It is still very great. It has the overwhelming advantage of being

written for the most part in prose instead of in blank verse, which any fool can write. And such prose! The first scene alone, with its energy of exposition, each phrase driving its meaning and feeling up to the head at one brief, sure stroke, is worth ten acts of ordinary Elizabethan sing-song. … The popularity of Rosalind is due to three main causes. First, she only speaks blank verse for a few minutes. Second, she only wears a skirt for a few minutes (and the dismal effect of the change at the end to the wedding-dress ought to convert the stupidest champion of petticoats to rational dress).

Third, she makes love to the man instead of waiting for the man to make love to her — a piece of natural history which has kept Shakespeare’s heroines alive, whilst generations of properly governessed young ladies, taught to say “no” three time at least, have miserably perished.

George Bernard Shaw, playwright and

critic, Dramatic Opinions and Essays with

an Apology, a review of a production at St.

James’ Theatre, December 1896

In no other comedy of Shakespeare’s is the heroine so all-important as Rosalind is in this one; she makes the play almost as completely as Hamlet does Hamlet. She seems ready to transcend the rather light piece in which she finds herself and, if only the plot would let her, to step straight into tragedy. When Celia, in the second scene of the play, begs her cousin to be more merry, Rosalind, in the first words she utters, replies: “Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier?”

“I am not merry; but I do beguile/The thing I am by seeming otherwise,” says Desdemona on the quay at Cyprus and on the edge of her tragedy. The similarity is startling. It clinches, as it were, the impression Rosalind makes on those who admire her most: that she had it in her, in Cordelia’s words, to outfrown a falser fortune’s frown than any she is called on to face in this comedy. Harold C. Goddard, professor of English,

The Meaning of Shakespeare, 1951

My eye was caught by the words As You Like It. There it was in bold letters: Matinee half-past two, As You Like It, the only play of yours against which I have never heard a word, the play above suspicion. So I paid my money and went in. Now I must confess it. I don’t like your As You Like It. I’m sorry, but I find it far too hearty, a sort of advertisement for beer, unpoetic and, frankly, not very funny. When you have one villain repenting because he’s nearly been eaten by a lion and another villain at the head of his army “converted from the world” because he happens to meet an “old religious man” and has “some question” with him, I really lose all patience.

So now, dear author, I don’t know what to say. I find most of your plays miraculous — except As You Like It. The critics find most of your plays a bore — except As You Like It. The public loves them all — including As You Like It. Why this odd division? What links these strangely contradictory attitudes? Could the fact that I did As You Like It for School Certificate have anything to do with it? Would going as a professional duty to

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 9

THE PLAY

every new Shakespeare production, willy-nilly year in and year out, make them all merge into a nightmare School Certificate blur? I wonder.

Peter Brook, theater director, “An Open

Letter to William Shakespeare,” The Shifting

Point, 1987

Compared with most of Shakespeare’s comparable plays, As You Like It noticeably lacks a strong forward thrust. The other comedies have pressing questions: Can Antonio be saved from Shylock (The Merchant of Venice)? Will the mixups created by Oberon’s magic love-juice in A Midsummer Night’s Dream be sorted out? How will the shrew be tamed in the play of that name? Instead of forces like these pressing us onward, what we have in the Forest of Arden is something like “time out” in a basketball game. While the clock is on, the action rushes forward. Then the clock is stopped, and there is a period of time that doesn’t “count.” Urgencies are suspended. Time is out: out of its customary course, displaced from the usual relentless sequence, not pressing on with problems to be solved and deadlines to be met, liberated from its own rules. … Time in As You Like It is, as Helen Gardner says, “unmeasured”: rather than events pushing us forward, we get more of a sense of space, “a space in which to work things out.”

Susan Snyder, scholar, “As You Like It: A

Modern Perspective,” Folger Shakespeare

Library edition of the play, 1997

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, the accurately titled As You Like It is as much set in an earthly realm of possible good as King Lear and Macbeth are set in earthly hells. And of all Shakespeare’s comic heroines, Rosalind is the most gifted, as remarkable in her mode as Falstaff and Hamlet are in theirs. Shakespeare has been so subtle and so careful in writing Rosalind’s role that we never quite awaken to her uniqueness among his (or all literature’s) heroic wits. A normative consciousness, harmoniously balanced and beautifully sane, she is the indubitable ancestress of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, though she has a social freedom beyond Jane Austen’s careful limitations.

Harold Bloom, scholar, The Invention of the

Human, 1998

I don’t know how it is in America, but in England students had to read As You Like It a good deal in schools and act it too, and at that time I found it dull. The trouble is that it’s not a play for kids. It’s very sophisticated, and only adults can understand what it’s about. You have to be acquainted with what it means to be a civilized person, and a child or adolescent won’t have such knowledge.

W.H. Auden, poet, Lectures on Shakespeare,

Princeton University Press, 2000

PHOTO: SARAH AGNEW AND MARIKA PROCTOR IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

10 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

THE PLAYWRIGHT

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to John and Mary Arden Shakespeare and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in England’s West Country.

Much of the information about him comes from official documents such as wills, legal documents and court records. There are also contemporary references to him and his

writing. While much of the biographical information is sketchy and incomplete, for a person of his class and as the son of a town alderman, quite a lot of information is available.

Young Shakespeare would have attended the Stratford grammar school, where he would have learned to read and write not only English, but also Latin and some Greek. In 1582, at age

18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, and the couple would have three children: Susanna in 1583 and twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585.

After an eight-year gap where Shakespeare’s activity is not known, he appeared in London by 1592 and quickly began to make a name for himself as a prolific playwright. He stayed in London for about 20 years, becoming increasingly successful in his work as an actor, writer and shareholder in his acting company. Retirement took him back to Stratford to lead the life of a country gentleman. His son Hamnet died at age 11, but both daughters were married: Susanna to Dr. John Hall and Judith to Thomas Quiney.

Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616 on April 23, which is thought to be his birthday. He is buried in the parish church, where his grave can be seen to this day. His known body of work includes at least 37 plays, two long poems and 154 sonnets.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 11

THE PLAYWRIGHT

The Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator as an Instrument of Nature; and ’tis not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him.

Alexander Pope, Preface to The Works of

Shakespeare, 1725

We do not understand Shakespeare from a single reading, and certainly not from a single play. There is a relation between the various plays of Shakespeare, taken in order; and it is work of years to venture even one individual interpretation of the pattern in Shakespeare’s carpet.

T. S. Eliot, Dante, Faber & Faber, 1929

Shakespeare’s mind is the type of the androgynous, of the man-woman mind. … It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929

His characters are intimately bound up with the audience. That is why his plays are the greatest examplethere is of a people’s theater; in this theater the public found and still finds its own problems and re-experiences them.

Jean-Paul Sartre, On Theater, 1959

[A]lthough each play is a separate and individual work of art, they all generally illuminate one another, and taken together they form an impressive achievement in which each individual play acquires more weight and dignity when placed against the background of the whole corpus. Each play is more or less a landmark in the road along which Shakespeare the artist traveled, or, to change the metaphor, each play is a variation on a number of themes that recur in the poet’s work.

M.M. Badawn, Background to Shakespeare,

Macmillian India Limited, 1981

If one takes those thirty-seven plays with all the radar lines of the different viewpoints of the different characters, one comes out with a field of incredible density and complexity; and eventually one goes a step further, and one finds that what happened, what passed through this man called Shakespeare and came into existence on sheets of paper, is something quite different from any other author’s work. It’s not Shakespeare’s view of the world, it’s something which actually resembles reality. A sign of this is that any single word, line,

character or event has not only a large number of interpretations, but an unlimited number. Which is the characteristic of reality. … An artist may try to capture and reflect your action, but actually he interprets it – so that a naturalistic painting, a Picasso painting, a photograph, are all interpretations. But in itself, the action of one man touching his head is open to unlimited understanding and interpretation. In reality, that is. What Shakespeare wrote carries that characteristic. What he wrote is not interpretations: it is the thing itself.

Peter Brook, “What is Shakespeare?” (1947),

in The Shifting Point, Harper & Row, 1987

Every age creates its own Shakespeare. … Like a portrait whose eyes seem to follow you around the room, engaging your glance from every angle, [his] plays and their characters seem always to be “modern,” always to be “us.” Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All, Anchor Books, 2004

A Legacy That Continues to Inspire

PHOTO: LUIS VEGA AND ANDREA SAN MIGUEL IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

As You Like It dates to around 1599–1600 during Shakespeare’s mature period. While it may have been performed at court by 1603, no evidence remains. It was first published in the First Folio in 1623, and the first documented performance was in 1723 — in an adaptation that left out the clowns! Since the mid-18th century, the play has continued to be one of Shakespeare’s most popular works.

The primary source for the play was a pastoral romance in prose by Thomas Lodge called Rosalynde, or Euphues’ Golden Legacy, which dates to around 1590. Among the changes Shakespeare made to the story were several name changes, including Celia and Orlando, and the additions of the clown Touchstone and the melancholic traveler Jaques.

Our 2019 production is the fifth time the Guthrie has staged As You Like It: 1966 (Edward Payson Call, director), 1982 (Liviu Ciulei, director), 1994 (Garland Wright, director) and 2005 (Joe Dowling, director).

Shakespeare’s Plays

PHOTOS: ZLATO RIZZIOLLI, WAYNE T. CARR AND SAM WICK IN PERICLES (JENNY GRAHAM); NATHANIEL FULLER IN KING LEAR (T CHARLES ERICKSON); KATE EASTMAN IN ROMEO AND JULIET (JENNY GRAHAM)

EARLY PERIODca. 1587–92 The Two Gentlemen of Verona ca. 1589–90 Titus Andronicus ca. 1590 Henry IV, Part IIca. 1590–91 Henry IV, Part III ca. 1591 The Taming of the Shrewca. 1592 Henry IV, Part I; Richard III ca. 1594 The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost

MIDDLE PERIODca. 1595 Richard II; Romeo and Juliet ca. 1596 A Midsummer Night’s Dream; King John; The Merchant of Venice ca. 1598 Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; Much Ado About Nothing ca. 1599 Henry V; Julius Caesar ca. 1600 As You Like It; The Merry Wives of Windsor ca. 1601 Twelfth Night ca. 1602 Troilus and Cressida ca. 1602–04 Hamlet ca. 1604 Othello; Measure for Measure ca. 1605–06 All’s Well That Ends Well; King Lear; Macbeth

LATE PERIODca. 1606 Timon of Athens; Antony and Cleopatra ca. 1608 Pericles; Coriolanus ca. 1609–11 The Winter’s Tale ca. 1610 Cymbeline ca. 1611 The Tempest ca. 1613 Henry VIII ca. 1613–14 The Two Noble Kinsmen

Authorship and dating of Shakespeare’s plays is a subject of much academic

debate. These dates are speculative, but are the “most probable” dating from The

New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works.

THE PLAYWRIGHT

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 13

CULTURAL CONTEXT

RosalindLovely, beautiful, sweet rose (Spanish: rosa linda)

GanymedeA beautiful Trojan youth abducted by Zeus who became cupbearer to the gods

CeliaHeavenly; Shakespeare’s use of the name introduced it to the public at large in England

Aliena Stranger (in Latin)

de Boys Of the woods

OrlandoThe Italian version of the French name Roland (meaning “famous land”), a hero of Charlemagne romances, where Oliver (Olivier) also appears as the hero’s friend

OliverAncestor’s descendant; fell out of favor in England after Oliver Cromwell’s brief rise to power in the 17th century

JacquesSupplanter (French); a form of Jacob

JaquesVariant of Jacques; in its monosyllabic form (“jakes”), it was an Elizabethan word for toilet

AdamOne of the two original inhabitants of Eden; the first man

TouchstoneDark, flinty stone used to test purity of gold or silver; broadly, a touchstone is a standard or criterion

Le Beau Beautiful, handsome

SilviusWood, forest (Latin: silva)

PhoebeBright, pure (Greek); was used as a given name in England after the Protestant Reformation

AudreyA diminutive of the Anglo-Saxon name Aetheldred; toward the end of the Middle Ages, it fell out of favor because the word “tawdry” was derived from St. Audrey, a fair where cheap lace could be purchased, but it came back in the 19th century

DennisEnglish form of Denis; a French form of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine

FrederickPeace ruler, from a Germanic name

CharlesFree man; derived from the German name, Karl

AmiensMay be derived from the French word “ami” meaning friend or companion

Sir Oliver Martext“Mar-” as a prefix means “a person who mars”; in 1588–1589, a group of English Puritans secretly printed a number of pamphlets attacking the Anglican Church that were authored by “Martin Marprelate” and included many nonce-words like mar-priest and mar-church; Shakespeare may be referring to that in naming his priest Martext, perhaps to describe a “priest that lacks Latin”

CorinFrench and English version of an old Roman name meaning “spear”

WilliamStrong-willed warrior; popular English name after William the Conqueror and the playwright himself

Character Names and Their Meanings

PHOTO: SUN MEE CHOMET AND MAX WOJTANOWICZ IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

14 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

CULTURAL CONTEXT

Selected Glossary of Terms

A

ArdenA forest in Warwickshire, near Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown; in Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, the primary source for As You Like It, the forest was called Ardenne (or Ardennes), an ancient forest in northeastern France, which is why there are so many French references in the play

argumentTopic, subject matter “Hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?” (Celia, 1.2.30–32)

assayedAttempted, tried“What if we assayed to steal/ The clownish fool” (Rosalind, 1.3.105–106)

atomies Dust, motes, specks“Who shut their coward gates on atomies” (Phoebe, 3.5.13)

B

breeding“Noble” blood; education“And will you, being a woman of your breeding” (Jaques, 3.3.43)

C

caparisonedDressed, decked out“Though I am caparisoned like a man” (Rosalind, 3.2.129)

clownRustic, country bumpkin“Holla, you, clown!” (Touchstone, 2.4.48)

conceitUnderstanding“That I know you are a gentleman of good conceit” (Rosalind, 5.2.38)

counterfeitPretend“Now counterfeit to swoon, why, now fall down” (Phoebe, 3.5.17)

D

desertA remote, empty place“That in this desert inaccessible” (Orlando, 2.7.89)

E

entertainmentFood and lodging; hospitality“Can in this desert place buy entertainment” (Rosalind, 2.4.56)

enviousMalicious “More free from peril than the envious court?” (Duke Senior, 2.1.4)

F

fainGladly, willingly“I would fain see this meeting” (Jaques, 3.3.26)

fallIn wrestling, a bout or point “You shall try but one fall” (Duke Frederick, 1.2.116)

feigningImaginative, fictitious; deceiving“Most friendship is feigning” (Amiens, 2.7.159)

forswornPerjured, falsely sworn “And yet was not the knight forsworn” (Touchstone, 1.2.39–41)

G

GargantuaA legendary giant known for his large appetite“You must borrow me Gargantua’s mouth first” (Celia, 3.2.146)

gentleNoble“Why I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius” (Phoebe, 3.5.82)

greenwoodA wood or forest in leaf, usually associated with outlaws or exiles “Under the greenwood tree” (Amiens, 2.5.1)

grow upon meTo become troublesome; to take liberties“Is it even so, begin you to grow upon me?” (Oliver, 1.1.51)

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 15

H

honest Chaste“As the most capricious poet honest Ovid was among the Goths” (Touchstone, 3.3.4–5)

humorousIll-humored, temperamental“The Duke is humorous” (Le Beau, 1.2.173–174)

I

ill-favoredly Ugly“Those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favoredly” (Celia, 1.2.26–27)

inland bredRaised in civilized society“Yet am I inland bred” (Orlando, 2.7.77)

ipseTaken from classical Latin, ipse means himself, itself, oneself, the very person or thing“For all your writers do consent that ‘ipse’ is he. Now you are ipse, but I am she.” (Touchstone, 5.1.32–33)

M

make you Are you doing; to create or fashion “Now, sir, what make you here?” “Nothing: I am not taught to make anything.” (Oliver/Orlando, 1.1.15–16)

marryA mild oath derived from “by Mary”; a pun on “mar”“Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made” (Orlando, 1.1.18)

matterGood sense, ideas, topics“For then she’s full of matter” (Duke Senior, 2.1.54)

misprizedDespised“That I am altogether misprized” (Oliver, 1.1.105)

modernCommonplace“Of wise saws and modern instances” (Jaques, 2.7.132)

motleyA professional jester, like Touchstone, who would wear multicolored clothing“I met a fool i’th’forest/A motley fool” (Jaques, 2.7.12–13)

P

philosophyPractical wisdom“Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?” (Touchstone, 3.2.16)

poeticalSkills and faculties of a poet; worthy of being celebrated in verse by poets“I would the gods had made thee poetical” (Touchstone, 3.3.5)

S

simplesIngredients“Compounded of many simples” (Jaques, 4.1.11)

skirtsBorder, edges“Here in the skirts of the forest” (Rosalind, 3.2.185)

stir this gamesterTorment this athlete“Now will I stir this gamester” (Oliver, 1.1.100)

W

Wit, whither wilt?Proverbial saying meaning “Where are your senses?”; usually said to someone who talks too much“He might say, ‘Wit, whither wilt?’” (Orlando, 4.1.94)

worldWorldly things“Was converted/Both from his enterprise and from the world” (Jacques de Boys, 5.4.116–117)

Sources include notes to the New Cambridge Shakespeare and Arden Shakespeare editions of the play; Shakespeare’s Words by David Crystal and Ben Crystal; Oxford English Dictionary; and Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

CULTURAL CONTEXT

16 \ GUTHRIE THEATER

For Further Reading and Understanding

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

AS YOU LIKE IT EDITIONS

As You Like It, The New Cambridge Shakespeare, edited by Michael Hattaway.

As You Like It, The Arden Shakespeare, edited by Agnes Latham.

Shakespeare in Production: As You Like It, edited by Cynthia Marshall.

As You Like It, The Folger Shakespeare Library, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine.

FILMS

As You Like It, directed and adapted by Kenneth Branagh, with Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, Romola Garai as Celia, David Oyelowo as Orlando, Adrian Lester as Oliver and Brian Blessed as the Dukes, 2006.

As You Like It, directed by Christine Edzard, with Emma Croft as Rosalind, Andrew Tiernan as Orlando and Oliver and James Fox as Jaques, 1992.

As You Like It, directed by Basil Coleman, with Helen Mirren as Rosalind, Brian Stirner as Orlando and Richard Easton as Duke Frederick, 1978.

As You Like It, directed by Paul Czinner, adapted by J.M. Barrie, with Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind and Laurence Olivier as Orlando, 1936.

BOOKS (GENERAL SHAKESPEARE STUDIES)

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (two volumes). New York: Avenel Books, 1970.

Auden, W.H. Lectures on Shakespeare. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Coye, Dale F. Pronouncing Shakespeare’s Words: A Guide from A to Zounds. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.

Crystal, David and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion, New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare After All, Pantheon, 2004.

Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947.

Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2004.

Shapiro, James, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, Simon & Schuster, 2001.

ONLINE

Folger Shakespeare Librarywww.folger.eduA wealth of resources, including lesson plans, study guides and interactive activities.

Shakespeare UnlimitedA biweekly podcast produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library that features interviews with Shakespeare experts on topics ranging from adapting Shakespeare to what Elizabethans ate to discussions about current productions.

Internet Shakespeare Editionshttp://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/index.htmlA collection of materials on Shakespeare and his plays, an extensive archive of productions and production materials.

Shakespeare Uncoveredhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/A series that goes in-depth into one play per episode. A host with a personal tie to the play investigates the text and its interpretations and visits companies in rehearsal and in performance. Full episodes are available online.

MIT Shakespeare: The Complete Works Onlinehttp://shakespeare.mit.edu/

PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resourcehttps://playshakespeare.com/ After registration, receive access to the full texts of the plays, synopses, the First Folio and study aids; also produces a smartphone app with the full texts of the plays.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 17